Oct 7- Dragons

Honestly, what is more awesome than dragons? They breathe fire, they fly, they can grab people up and eat them, and they are gigantic. I want one. Dragons are not typically seen in a lot of movies these days, but they are a staple of fantasy. After all, another name for a classic hero is "dragon-slayer". No matter what story we are talking about, once a character has killed a dragon, their badass level has gone through the roof. Nobody says "he killed a dragon? who cares". Dragons are known as the destroyers of villages and the bringers of death. When one guy is able to stop that, he should get all the praise one can give. On top of that, owning a dragon becomes just as badass. Part of what makes Daenerys Targaryen so awesome is that she owns three dragons that are getting larger all the time. You take this destructive force of nature and get it to call you "mommy". That is the mark of a true bad ass.

Yeah, that's all I got for dragons. I can definitely say that defeating dragons is extremely satisfying too.  In the 2011 game Skyrim, all you do is kill dragons and devour their souls to get new abilities. That's the ultimate insult to injury. What's better is that no matter how many times you kill dragons, you still get that feeling that your genitalia is increasing.

Here are some pictures of dragons, May they make your day better.

Not quite what I was going for but it will work

   

Oct 6- Nazi's

Nazis are almost too easy. In the same way that Darth Vader and The Joker are easily recognized across all factions of culture, so are Nazi’s unanimously recognized across cultures as some of the worst pricks on the planet. You can say literally anything about them and not worry about offending somebody. As Craig Ferguson put it, “fuck you, you’re a Nazi!”

Given their almost universally hated status, they’ve become the easy go-to when it comes to making an easy villain. In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, he thought he was just looking for his father, and then he discovered Nazis were involved, then the whole game was changed. In the recent spy adventure, The Man from UNCLE, both Soviets and the US put aside their differences. Why? To stop a Nazi. When Captain America decided to dissolve SHIELD, why did he do it? Because they had been taken over by Hydra, a Nazi organization. Once a Nazi gets involved in anything, that’s when you know it’s time to pull the plug.

So why are Nazi’s so hated? I don’t really think I need to answer this, but here we go. They mass murdered both their own people and people from other countries, they tried to take over the world, their politics were insane, and their leader sported one of the worst mustaches in history. They also were not very good at letting things go. For example, when France surrendered to Germany, Hitler made them sign the surrender document in the same train car that Germany had surrendered to France at the end of World War I. Does anybody want to be friends with someone who throws that much shade?

What makes them so terrifying is that they aren't aliens or monsters. They are people. Actual thinking people thought that murdering so many people for such trivial reasons was not only justified, but the right thing to do. They told themselves they were making the world a better place by doing these things. That's a horrifying. Convincing a small group of people to do something crazy is one thing, but Nazi ideals had an entire country supporting this. Now of course, the defense that a lot of former Nazi's threw around at Nuremburg is that they were under orders. This notion had psychologists baffled for years. How is it that these seemingly intelligent, decent people could be coaxed into committing these atrocities? Eventually an answer was found, though through less intense means. Nazi Germany is the ultimate example of what can happen when too many people let their emotions get the better of them. 

As odd as it sounds, it was hard to pick a specimen to represent the ideal nazi in movies. The reason being that there have been so many of them throughout cinema history and the type of movie they are in depends on how they are going to be shown. If this were Indiana Jones or Inglourious Basterds, then they are mustache twirlers. If this were Schindler's List, they would be as true to history as possible. 

So I guess speed round?

 Belloq. Not techinically a Nazi, but was willing to go along with it to reach his own ambitions.

Hans Landa. Actually, one of the most likable on screen villains you'll find. Super polite and courteous. He even hints that he doesn't really support the Nazis in his mind, but he's a detective, so working for the Nazis is just his way of putting food on the table.

 Hitler, or Kung Fuhrer. Perfect example of how we take Nazis and exploit the hell out of the fact that we can point and laugh at them all we want and nobody gets offended.

Oct 5- Artificial Intelligence

Technology. Can't live with it, and if the last 5 years have taught me anything, we sure as hell can't live without it. If you're new to the sci-fi genre, one thing you should know is that we seem to have a fetish for killer robots and machines. From 2001 to Terminator to most recently Avengers: Age of Ultron, murder bots have always been a staple of sci-fi culture. In recent years, it's evolved to the point that we have gotten scared of technology almost. As soon as people mention the development of thinking computers, we immediately imagine scenes from Terminator or The Matrix of robots rising up and destroying or enslaving humanity.

And they all follow the same formula. Mankind invents a technology that can keep the peace or save the world. The problem is, that's all they tell it to do. All the computer learns is "Finish the mission". That's the only command they're given, they aren't given any guidelines or restrictions. Eventually (or sometimes right away), said machine will see humanity as an obstacle to completing the mission and therefore decide that we all have to go. This is what happens in all three of the movies I mentioned above.

The scary thing about Artificial Intelligence is that in every case, it's our fault. The machine didn't go haywire, it was just doing what it was programmed to do. So, in that sense, the only ones that we have to blame is ourselves. We told Skynet to destroy its enemies, so we became the enemy in its eyes. We told Ultron to create peace of our time, so he decided the only lasting peace would come at global extinction. We told HAL 9000 to finish the mission, and saw human emotion and doubt as being a hindrance to that end. I don't really know what led to the machine uprising in The Matrix, but I'm sure it's not different from the other ones.

Artificial Intelligence is the perfect mirror of humanity's ambitions and its flaws. It's not that our reach exceeds our grasp, it's that we don't think about what we are reaching for, and if it will be worth it. We have a bad habit of leaping before thinking. We want to achieve something, but we fail to consider the cost. In that way, all of these movies can be a cautionary tale of what could happen if we keep going with that mentality.

Ideal Specimen: The T-1000

An idea of someone who knows only one thing, that being to finish the mission would be the T-1000, and all of Skynet for that matter. As I mentioned before, they were told to destroy its enemies, and it saw mankind as the target. The T-1000, though simply a footsoldier, perfectly displays this. He doesn't care who or how many people he kills, or how much damage he causes, all he cares about is killing John Connor. Just look at his face in the picture above. There's no emotion, no feeling, just pure unadulterated determination. You wouldn't even know that he just came out of a flaming care wreck. He gets shot, gets run over by a car, he walks it off like nothing happened.Of course, I could also put the original Terminator played by Arnold himself on here, and yeah, he does belong, but Robert Patrick's T-1000 is far more intimidating in my eyes. For starters, he doesn't look all that intimidating, he looks like a normal guy. But his cold gaze and his scanning eyes make him hard to make eye contact with. He also is the more resourceful. Since his body is entirely liquid metal, he can form knives with his hands, he can mold his face to look like anyone, he can even change his voice to sound like other people. Not to mention he's disguised as a cop. He's about as big of a devil in disguise as you can get.

Oct 4- Aliens

Much like ghosts, aliens tend to be something of a blank slate. While vampires and werewolves usually follow the same set of rules, aliens and ghosts are much more flexible. If you wanted to make a similar questionnaire about aliens like the one I made for ghosts, the questions would be different, but there’d also be more of them. The obvious first choice is whether they are friendly or not. From there, you have to choose several other items. What do they look like? Are they intelligent? Why are they here? Where do they come from? Do they eat brains? What color is their blood? That last question may seem random, but pay attention to alien blood next time you see it. Aliens can be terrifying because again, we don’t know if they are hostile or not. And two, they don’t always follow the same logic and philosophies that humans do. What could seem dastardly to most people could be perfectly justified to an alien from another world.

A common theme that I’ve seen in alien movies is this extraterrestrial civilization saying that Earth is an underdeveloped planet, as are it’s people. Oh really? If that’s the case then why does the movie always end with earthlings kicking your ass? We may not have as cool space ships as you but at least we know how to fire a gun. In some cases, the humans use alien technology against them. That’s gotta be embarrassing for them.

  

Ideal Specimen- Xenomorphs

Holy crap, are these things scary as hell. They’re so intelligent they make the raptors from Jurassic Park look lobotomized. They bleed acid. They hunt by scent and hearing. They have two mouths to eat you with. They can impale you with their tale. And they have no eyes. So help me god they have no eyes. How can you look death in the eye, when it has no fucking eyes?!

I don't know what is more terrifying about them, their very existence or that they give birth by implanting an embryo inside a host and then the baby bursts out of that person's body.

That scene still gives me the creeps to this day.

If you want an idea of how terrifying xenomorphs can be, don’t just watch the first two movies, also play the video game Alien: Isolation. You are stuck on a ship, the inhabitants have gone nuts, the androids have gone haywire, and there is an infinite number of xenomorphs roaming around like they own the place. Because let’s face it, they pretty much do.

All things considered, xenomorphs can't really be considered evil. I mean, sure they are abominations of nature that eat and murder (in that order) everything in sight, but they are essentially fulfilling the most basic instinct of evolution: to survive and to thrive. Every organism has that goal whether advanced or not, xenomorphs are just dicks about it.

Oct 3- Ghosts

Ah, ghosts. The one horror element that never seems to get old. They might be the original horror villain because they are the first reason that we are afraid to turn off the lights, and they tend to be the subject of many scary stories we hear as kids. Think about it, there is a whole category of “ghost stories”. Ghosts are also the most flexible of monsters. You can make them threatening, as in The Woman in Black or they can be friendly like Casper or most of the ghosts on The Haunted Mansion at Disneyland. You can also make up your own rules for ghosts depending on what you’re writing. It’s like you can play Mad Libs when writing a ghost story. I actually picture this kind of questionnare being filled out when writing a ghost story.

Circle one for each answer:

What are they haunting?    

  A specific area (such as a town or hotel)            A person or a group of people

Why are they haunting?     

Curse on the area                  Unfinished business                   Person(s) was an asshole to them in life

Is there any way for them to go away?                    Yes                                                No

If circled yes, explain below (bonus points if it involves human sacrifice):

Do they have any abilities? List them below:

Most of the time, they only circle one answer. They circle two, then things start to get needlessly complicated.

Ideal Specimen: Lloyd the Bartender

One of the brilliant aspects of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining is the build up. At first it doesn’t seem like there’s a whole lot happening, but once the ghosts in the hotel start to reveal themselves, things get going very quickly. One of the first ghosts to appear is Lloyd the Bartender, who appears to Jack in a moment of weakness. We don’t know what to make of this guy. He seems more than friendly and polite, but considering how tense things have been building up, we don’t trust him at first. I think it’s the fact that you never actually see him blink. Much like Hannibal Lecter, there’s an uneasiness that comes when you are talking to a person who never seems to close their eyes. It just feels more like they are studying you, learning everything they can. And considering Lloyd is a supernatural entity, we can assume it won’t be that hard for him. And besides, he's a ghost. Why would a ghost blink?Now some may be expecting that I would put Grady instead of Lloyd, and I can understand that. But for me, Grady is the one who spoiled the mystery of the hotel. He was the one that confirmed to us that the hotel has sinister intentions and that it’s not just screwing with its inhabitants. Since a good portion of this movie is trying to figure things out, the questionable nature of Lloyd kept the theme going. Don’t get me wrong, Grady was cool, and the way he slowly lifted the veil and went from being friendly and polite to commanding and threatening was brilliant, but it was more fun when we were trying to answer questions ourselves. And that is another thing that people don’t really think about when it comes to ghost movies. It becomes a mystery of figuring out their nature and whether they can be stopped or not, and how.

Oct 2- Vampires

Number 2 on the list of most popular monsters as of late are vampires, though they seem to have seen their days come and go. Now, I know why they became more popular for a stretch, it’s because of Stephanie Meyer, even though her books had little to do with actual vampirism and more to do with being hot and immortal and misunderstood and having a personality that would make wet cardboard jealous. So we aren’t going to talk about them. We are here to talk about the old school vampires. The ones that suck the blood of the innocent, turn into bats or demons of hell, depending on which version you look at, and are so unholy and satanic that water with a cross on it will give them hives.

So why have vampires been so popular? Even before Twilight, vampires were already a staple of pop horror. One of the first horror films ever, Nosferatu, is a vampire flick. Think about it, in terms of being a horror icon, they really are the complete package. They suck blood, they prey on the weak, most of the time they got their powers as part of some Faustian bargain. And unlike zombies, who look like people but have lost all of their personality and humanity, vampires still get to keep that. And they get to keep their faces without any decay taking place. And they’re immortal which from a character stand point, makes them perfect for story telling. Many times a vampire is a character that has lived for centuries and has seen civilizations rise and fall. They’re viewers of the never ending story that is human history. This may play a part in why many vampires are people who have lost their humanity. They’ve seen the mistakes that mankind has made and continues to make, even though they should have learned from it the first few times. So, to them, they probably don’t see the killing of an innocent to be that big of a crime because they’re saving the world from one more idiot who would have contributed to humanity’s next big mistake.

Okay, it actually just hit me that I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen that angle played out in a vampire story, so whoever plans on writing a vampire novel next, feel free to use that. Just give me a writer’s cred for it. But I digress.

Ideal Specimen: Count Dracula

Well, who else am I going to name? Sure, there are other vampires that have left their mark, but none of them have had such a big impression than Dracula. He’s been adapted dozens of times and by different actors who all had their own spin on the blood sucking count from Bella Lugosi to the immortal Christopher Lee and my personal favorite, Gary Oldman. In a way, every time the horror genre goes through a reinvention, there’s going to be an adaptation of Dracula that puts emphasis on the style of the day. When Christopher Lee played Dracula, it was during the Hammer Horror days when horror films were very goofy with lots of fake looking blood and special effects that didn’t really hold up, even back then. However, when you look at it, you get the idea that those decisions were made on purpose. The whole idea behind these films was more about the visual style than anything else. If you want a more modern idea of what a Hammer Horror film was like, take a look at any of Tim Burton’s movies, particularly Sweeney Todd or Sleepy Hollow. When Gary Oldman played Dracula, it put more emphasis on the sexual nature of vampires than past films. Not that that was the whole focus of the movie, but it was definitely more present than past adaptations. Because when you’re immortal, you’re gonna have a lot of time on your hands, and when you have three eternally beautiful wives, you’re gonna find some use for both that time and those hands, giggidy. What’s more interesting is that Oldman’s, while being more sensual than past versions, is also much creepier. Even when he’s a young man, there’s something unsettling about him. I never really knew if he was going to turn Mina into a vampire or not.

Oldman’s Dracula was also the first time we saw just how powerful he could be. He can take on the form of almost anything from a young man to a wolf, to fog, to a demon out of hell. It made him more threatening because you never really knew what the limits to his abilities were. If you haven’t seen this movie, and you like vampires, check it out. Visually, there’s some good stuff, and the performances, with a few exceptions, are really good.

Oct 1- Zombies

Perhaps it is a cliché, but if I’m going to talk about scary villains, I have to talk about zombies. In the past several years, zombies have really seen a renewal in their popularity. Of course we all know about the hit series The Walking Dead, but there have been several other areas where zombies have popped up from our video games to even a few movies. Some may like the Resident Evil franchise, but there have been several other zombie flicks (that have been much better). Of course there is 28 Days Later, and there’s the criminally underrated Warm Bodies and the zombie comedies Shaun of the Dead and Zombieland. So why all the popularity? How is it that legions of undead, unthinking bodies have become so prevailant? Well, for a few reasons. For starters, in almost every zombie movie there is a theme of people being shells of their former selves. When a character sees a loved one that has been killed and brought back, it’s a heart wrenching moment for them because they see the person that they once knew and loved, but nothing of what made them who they are is remaining. All that’s left is an instinct to run, kill and eat everything and everyone in sight. Some of the heaviest scenes in The Walking Dead are of people being faced with such a situation. There’s also been a running theme of once they die, somebody has to put a bullet in their brain as insurance that they won’t return as a zombie, or walker as they are called. This sounds like a job for the most willing candidate, but in The Walking Dead, the person who double taps is the person who was closest to them. In that way, it’s seen as a mercy for the dying person and a rite of passage for those who have to pull the trigger. That’s a very dark and twisted detail to add to an already twisted subject.

Typically, zombies tend to be caused by one of two different things: curses and epidemics. These days, most zombies tend to be a result of some drastic experiment or some horrible plague that nobody can identify. The more old school zombies were the result of some curse that raises the dead.

Ideal Specimen: The White Walkers (or The Others) from Game of Thrones

Yeah, who’d have thought that a show featuring dragons, magic and political intrigue would have time for zombies? Well, Game of Thrones certainly does. Actually, white walkers are about as creepy as they get. Nobody really knows for sure where they came from or who made them that way, we just know that if you come across one, the best thing to do would be to burn it, or stab it with obsidian or valyrian steel, the sharpest metal on earth. Their leader is the snowy Darth Maul you see above known only as the Night’s King, who with a wave of his hand can raise the dead, no matter how old they are or what shape they were in when they died. If the person died by having their throat slashed and their arm cut off, that just becomes a minor inconvenience, they don't even seem to notice it.

A flesh wound, if you will

 One of the creepiest scenes in the show is when the Night’s King raises multitudes of dead people around him, men women and children all. There's no chanting, no ritual, no spell being uttered he just raises his hands, and the dead rise with them. And this brings up a question that I have long asked about zombie outbreaks. Which is more intimidating? An epidemic that sees all living things as fair game, or a demon out of hell that can see the difference between adult and child, and just doesn’t care? I mean either way, you’re screwed. 

She's actually the first walker you see in the show

Month of October: Villains

So here we are, the month of October, where we celebrate the reformation of the medieval roman catholic church into the modern denominations that we are free to worship and participate in to this very day. Or, at least that is all they told us in our ultra conservative traditional Lutheran schools. Seriously, Oct 31 was never actually called Halloween in my school. They never even referred to it as All Hallows Eve. It was just Reformation Day.

So, in honor of the lost time I spent in High School ignoring the very existence of Halloween, I’ve decided that I’m going to try something a little different for the month of October. Every day this month, I’m going to talk about villains. In film, television, literature, even a few villainous urban legends that made us frightened of looking under the bed.

Why you may ask? Because I love villains! Whether they are creepy, funny or just annoying. Sometimes the villain can be the most memorable part of a story. How many non-comic book nerds can identify The Joker? How many people that have never seen Star Wars can recognize Darth Vader? The answer is just about everyone because they have become some of the most easily recognized characters in culture.

So, in honor of these characters and their villainous deeds, I’m going to talk about one villain each day for the month of October leading up to Halloween. Some days, I’ll be talking about a group or classification instead of just one specific, in which case I’ll mention the most notable example of why they are so scary and so prevalent. Don’t understand what I mean? Well, join me in Day 1 for a better idea.